Walking London's Lost Rivers - The Tyburn (4K) 

John, I'm reasonably sure that the pipe you were looking for that takes the Tyburn over the Regents Canal was in shot at 10.41. Had you done this walk about 3 years ago, you would have been able to go to the basement of the antiques market just south of Oxford St at Davies Street, by Bond Street tube station, as you say, with the stream running through it. That bit of the antiques market has now been demolished and a hotel put on its spot. There was even a little bridge over the stream which had goldfish in it! I may even be able to claim to have crossed a bridge over the Tyburn. I think I've got a photo somewhere if of interest. A.

This makes me realize how much I miss London.

Just keep discovering more and more of your videos. . You must have covered hundreds of mile with your walks 👍🏻

I used to be based in London during the 90’s while serving with the Irish Guards, I wish we could have access to the same information back in those days, I would have loved to follow the same routes along the forgotten rivers. Absolutely fascinating stuff, thank you!!!

In falconry there are two types of mews: the freeloft mews and traditional mews. Traditional mews usually consist of partitioned spaces designed to keep tethered birds separated with perches for each bird in the partitioned space. Many birds can be safely and comfortably housed in this setup. Traditional mews must be accompanied by a weathering yard to allow captive raptors adequate time outside as most traditional mews do not permit tethered raptors to spend time outdoors. Freeloft mews allow captive raptors more freedom of motion, but require much more space, as usually only one raptor may safely occupy the much larger chambers. Mews chambers can be as small as 36 square feet (3.3 m2) but are frequently much larger, often occupying as much space as a small house and sometimes reaching as high as three storeys. Birds are allowed to fly free within the chamber, and very often can choose between a number of perches. The word "mews" came from French muer = "to change".

This video is absolutely wonderful, I love trying to work out what the original landscape before urbanisation was likde. I call it "Urban Forensics". Also, love watching you walk around my old stomping ground, I now live in Bangkok, and it's great to watch videos of old London in the heat of a Bangkok night. Great history, great memories. Thanks John !

Dear George, was the scourge of many a droll, late night radio host. Wonderful.

I absolutely loved this walk, thank you John. Finally moving back to my adopted home London next year after hastily moving out a few years ago and regretting it every single day since. Your videos give me so much comfort.

In 1984, in my first journey in London, I knew the Fleet river story, So I began to study the lost rivers of London and - in the same time - the story about the lost rivers of Rome (my city). Thanks a lot for the videos, John Rogers

Hello John, when I walked the Tyburn (Feb 2018) I found the Basement 'Tyburn' on South Molton Lane, where you find Davies Mews slightly off to the right - In the Mews section of Gray's Antique Market. This is unlikely to be the actual river/sewer, but connected to the same groundwater springs - it has to be quite pure as it contains koi carp and is open topped - a sight to behold! Thanks for another amazing walk. My reference material was Tom Bolton - London's Lost Rivers - A Walkers Guide. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grays_Antique_Centre

I worked in Mayfair for many years and used to see on cold, still mornings, mists hanging in Lansdown Row which often floods t the entrance to Berkeley Street. Loving the work John, just finished the book, keep it coming.

Love this video! I have watched it again tonight. Walking through London in the evening, going down the narrow streets during and after the Christmas season, seeing the lights and the people, is on the top of my travel list. Thanks for taking me there again. Too bad I can't give this video a second like!

Loved this. I used to live on Crawford street. It is the basement of the Gray’s antiques that you were outside of. It’s been made into a channel in the basement. It’s magical.

Hi there John - great program. Winfield house is the official residence of the US. Ambassador. Built by Barbara Hutton in 1936 it stands alone opposite Hanover gate in the largest private garden in the capital after Buckingham palace. Named after her grandfather Frank Winfield Woolworth ( Yes, THE Woolworth). Married to Cary Grant she sold the house to the US. government for 1 Dollar in 1946.

That was so interesting,and a glimpse of pre-covid life.

Another fascinating walk! Hampstead is one of my favourite parts of London and I also was excited to see the HMV record shop because I had a summer job there in about 1970 while I was at University - in fact I think I was two summers there. I worked in the classical department downstairs and customers could hear records (I think this was even before cassettes came in!) before buying them, in listening booths. Quite a few famous people came in the store and I remember once telling off Andre Previn (without knowing who it was) for putting a pile of records on the hot glass counter above one of the record players. Another time I had a phone query from a lady with a rather characteristic voice - when I asked her name, it turned out to be Glynis Johns, who was more famous then than now probably. We also had a customer - an older man - who looked exactly like Tchaikovsky. Some of the other assistants would call out 'Look, Tchaikovsky's back!' when he turned up - which he must have heard, but he didn't react. And again I had customers who would say - I'm looking for a piece that goes la la la lalalala la.....la! do you stock it? Oops, I'm rambling - John, you always seem to trigger happy memories even looking for a hidden river! Amazing!

Rainbow George has just informed me that it was Perrin’s Walk where he lived next door to Peter Cook, not Perrin’s Court

fabulous as always

Very interesting, and nice shots of London in search of the river Tyburn!

The Lost Rivers Of London Book brought me here. Such a fascinating subject John. Many thanks!

Not one dislike on this video. John we all love you bro keep up all the good work 🔥👍🏽

Fascinating river for me, only really took notice of this river since watching John's videos. All because the river has caused me a bit of grief down the years, I got called several times to deal with periodic flooding situations at the Grays Antiques Market in London's West End, a light bulb moment when I first watched this video, the market suffers quite badly from flooding, checked the drains and they were okay but it flooded quite badly with sewegy water, but I did some research and found that the river flows right underneath the market, but I'm guessing down the years that foul water has been plumbed into this river, sadly.

just great,i think I will watch again.thanks for all the information on London.must check out and watch the lot

What a great video, thanks for making this.

Thank you John a nice long walk/Video for the new year i love it

It’s 10.21 pm on Monday 11 April 22 sooo enjoyable John.

I was on Fitzjohn's Avenue today, and I've come home and seen you have a video about it... This is great! now I get to learn about it!

Great mini documentary thanks

Great vlog to start the year. Thanks for sharing SMILES

This deserves to be a BBC4 documentary.

Wonderfully interesting and informative video's delivered in such relaxed, informal style.

Aaaah wonderful London. I worked in Belsize Park in the early 90s. That was a fascinating look at the underground rivers - thank you again for taking us with you. Love the views and the history.

Great stuff. This is a really interesting video.

really love the diverse architecture on this one John. My favourite upload, amongst many. So informative. Many thanks.

Thank you John for another fascinating video.A great way to start off the new year. Looking forward to your other river walks that you have planned

Awesome mate - a top job

Fascinating insights, thank you. Some great comments here too with extra gems of local knowledge!

Thanks again for another informative video John. I always glean a lot of information from your films. Bob.

Great start to the new year John. I wish you could do a walk every day. Keep them coming.

Fantastic, as always. The wonderful magical buried veins and arteries of London. Thanks John.

Yes John, It is magical!

Another very informative video John.As someone who has only visited tourist sites whilst visiting London it is always interesting to see other areas of the city.

I love these walking tours and can't wait to get down to London and do some myself when my broken ankle is healed and I'm walking again

Another really wonderful fascinating walk, I will be watching it again, there is so much to take in and see...as usual love listening to your commentary, so enjoyable and relaxing! What an absolute great start to 2019...thank you John! 👍

Another informative, enlightening film; the addition of a Google map of the walk is a thing of beauty. Thank you.

Very good John. Thank you

how amazing these walks are... and watching them 2 years later makes me long for those times when we could walk the cities freely, and all we had to worry about was not to being run over by a bus or a car... I read Rivers of London! I knew I needed more context to actually understand the characters. Then I sarted with moon over Soho but a third of the book in I sort of lost interest, sadly. I hope one day I can get back to that series!

Thank you John for yet another very very interesting Video of London. Lyn and I always feel quite relaxed and you make us feel like we are actually there. Kind regards Dave and Lyn ….. from Australia.

Enjoyed the video. I have walk round Mayfair and Green Park a lot, not realising that the Tyburn run under where I was walking. I use to listen to Rainbow George on BBC Radio London in the mornings. Some mornings talking about the Rainbow Political Party.

such a cozy lookin city , I love how the lights and shops look

@23:50 - I went to that cafe last Friday and sat in that exact same seat in the back corner! How odd! Great video as always by the way..

Another visitor from David Johns here :) Excellent stuff and very glad I came. Looking forward to watching your back catalogue and your upcoming episodes.

Fascinating walk as always, thank you! As usual I got sidetracked from the issue at hand and was intrigued by the sculptures in Bourdon Place (24:55). Google identified them as the works of sculptor Neal French - depicting a female passerby watching photographer Terence Donovan (who had a studio in the vicinity) on a photo shoot with Twiggy (not visible in your video). That is why I love your videos, John - lots of things to notice and learn and opportunities for one's imagination to take flight. I also think I saw the Queen waving from one of the windows in Buckingham Palace. Oh, maybe not.

I really enjoyed that, John. It brightened up my day no end. Would love to hear more about Rainbow George and Peter Cook. As he might of said, no doubt some of it is "pure gold".

Wonderful video, John. I've spent some time in the City of London during the holidays, so this brings back lots of memories. . Your explorations into the hidden topography of the "lost rivers" in that area are simply fascinating.

This will be my first time going to England for my internship this summer and I’m beyond excited. I’ve watched so many vlogs including yours and learn about the british culture. I’m still learning haha.

Fantastic! I can have a walk through London with an expert guide from my cozy desk located in the coastal grasslands of Texas, between Victoria and Goliad. Cheers... fascinating!

Greetings from NYC. Strange to hear Ben Aaronovitch and Cruising the Cut mentioned within five minutes of each other. But I'm sold!

Such an interesting walk, great stuff John 👍🙂

At 9-41you pan around to Tyburn Bridge. The pipe is inside it!! Laternyou are literally standing on top of it. Great video. ;)

Nice one John. That's my evening's entertainment sorted.

Very interesting thanks 😁👍👏👏👏

Wonderful. I love London in the dark.

In the case of a London 'mews', I understood the word means a converted stables. Lovely video, John - a real glimpse of some of those picturesque passages and alleys. Oh - and Avery Row: maybe Avery is the same as Overie, meaning over the river, as at Southwark.

Nice music. Very ambient.

A credit to you sir! Magical... I’ve ‘Subscribed’!

‘Meandering riverine vibe’...a truely wonderful walk John, so much info and juicy facts.. Rather strange to see you outside Buckingham palace.

I am here via David shoutout😊. You are right it was a great walk. You had me gripped from start to finish. I look forward to joining you on future walks.

Thank you for the info about Ben Aaronovich’s London River books. I needed a book recommendation.

This video is absolutely enthralling. So many areas that I know so well. Gosh I have drank at the Olde Swiss Cottage pub many a time. Great stuff, John! We'll have to do one of Hammersmith, Barnes and Richmond.

Another classic, John. These river walks are an excellent idea & this one turned into a night walk, too. Enjoyed the little 'sustenance on the go' interludes. A subject for a future chapbook, perhaps?

Handel also lived in Brook Street, next door to Hendrix, not at the same time obviously! The building is now the Handel House Museum, and I believe also has an exhibition about Hendrix. I must go and take a look sometime when we finally get out of this lockdown.

Great video, I too found my way here from Cruising the Cut.

I think this has been the best exploration involving streets so far. I really got a feel for the lay of the land which is odd for me when it is an urban setting. When you came to that curve in the road I just thought to myself, 'what else could that be other than building originally sprung up along the bend in a river'.

Another David Johns viewer now subscribed here. Already a favourite channel and steadily working my way through the videos - the quality of filming, presentation and detail is broadcast TV level, even the music adds to the whole. Absolutely brilliant. PS while mews originates as a falconry term, in the context of those streets in London it refers to stables which is fairly clear if you look at the architecture. (IIRC, London’s royal stables were built on the site of the king’s old falconry thus seeing the word move from birds to horses - an etymologist’s dream!)

My favourite video thus far

Thank you Mr. Rogers,as interesting as ever. In the early/mid 1960`s I worked for a firm of "casemakers" & export packers in the day`s when stuff was put in wooden crates & loaded onto ship`s. We had a small branch to serve the London auction houses & dealers.We were located in "Haunch Of Venison Yard" that linked Upper Brook Street to South Moulton Street.The timber was stored in the basement that was always damp,& on occasion got flooded . Watching your film leads me to the conclusion that The Tyburn might have been the culprit? Some years later I worked at 152 Fleet Street,a few doors down from "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese" pub, & we had the same flooding issue in the basement.The River Fleet perhaps?

Destined to be a royal river John. I enjoyed that especially the discovery of the Walbrook sign. All buried in our midst. Great stuff! I Look forward to your river walks - I have a few this year to. All the best Mark.

With the pc version of ViewRanger, when you use the zoomed in layer, the Tyburn appears to cross near the end of Charlbert St. and Prince Albert Rd. There also appears to be a path across the canal at this point. The map shows the Tyburn picking up overland on the SE side of the canal. I’ve been following CTC as well, and was happy to see David’s shout out.

Thank you for the video. Fascinating. There is an underground brook that runs under the gardens of my street and then discharges into the Thames about a mile from me but I can only find out a little about it.

In the early 2000s I worked as a site engineer on a building that had been demolished and excavated down to sub basement level somewhere north of Avery street. We had an A1 scanned copy of an Bazalgette architectural drawing. Showing a section and plan view of the Tyburn brickwork conduit. It was an oval shape on its side about approximately 2.5-3m wide and 1.5-2m high . Can't remember how deep it was. It ran along just out side the periimeter of our site. Only worked at that site for 2 weeks but always remembered beautiful hand drawn technical drawing. He probably did not draw it himself but he had signed it off.

Magical evening walking.

At 9:47 you mention the Tyburn crossing the Regents Canal in a pipe. I found the following extract in London under London A subterranean guide ; In 1860 John Hollingshead travelled the bricked over Tyburn and records being guided by in front three men with lanterns and two following"...we passed through an iron tube, about three feet high by two feet broad , which conveys the sewerage over the Regents Canal, through the crown of the bridge" I would think his estimate of the tube size given there would have been water flowing through as well as fitting them all in somewhat under its true dimension although he goes on to write..." it was not until we got into lower levels, towards Baker Street, that the sewer became sufficiently large to allow us to stand upright"

John there is a plaque on a wall on Lyndhurst road where it meets Akenside Road that shows the site of the Shepherds well. It’s visible on street view.

Another great video, thanks John. A channel you may like is Martin Zero following history and rivers in Manchester. Cruising the cut is great too. Thanks again from Perth, WA.

these river walks are great! mews, mews oh yes - john steed lived at 3 stable mews and at 5 Westminster Mews 😉

I'm here thanks to David Cruising the cut. Mews a small street lined with former stables that have been converted into housing. Wish you had started the walk earlier :-). Great video.

Narrowboating David pointed me in your direction. It's a long trip from Chiang Mai, but I enjoyed the journey and subscribed. There's lots to explore in your library, so I'm settling in comfortably, thank you.

Winter is beautiful. The landscape is transparent.

Hi John great walk there is a map from 1931 showing sewers and the tyburn river around Regents park is known as the Kings Scolars Pond and skirts the park to the west and then follows your walk all the way to buck house then to pimlico

Great video John. As soon as you said the word 'riverine' I thought of Apocalypse Now: you are on a solo voyage along a river while other people on their own journeys intersect yours, and the river ends in a palace and a place of execution. Oh, and you also had a nod to 'Purple Haze' with the Hendrix reference.

A magnificent evening walk following the Tyburn. The twilight seemed magical for you John. I'm curious why so many rivers were piped up underground. It seems to me, at least in this day and age we've lost so much of what could be described as the charm a small brook or stream brings along it path. Happy New Year.

A mews is a group of stables, typically with rooms above, built around a yard or along an alley.

What fun! Thanks John. Just a thought: maybe the pipe over Regent's Canal was within the structure of the masonry bridge at 10:42?

You can see that Hendrix &Handel lived in the house on that corner , brook st & Lancashire court is parallel Avery Row, very close, I walked in the back of the house, museum once and you can feel it’s the same age of street and buildings

You could easily plot the river's "former" route on GPS and walk it to see how close you are & where it is / was. A great vid.

Awesome video! searched up river walking beacause today that's what we done on our school Geography trip today lmao😂👍🔥

I have been to the Jimi Hendrix Museum which was where he lived. I am also fortunate enough to have stayed one night at Claridge's Hotel one New Year's Eve.

Super video, I know some of the area but never visited Hampstead Heath. Would still love to wander round celeb spotting on the Heath and of course being spotted myself as a very minor celeb

By regents park you can here it rushing under the road if its quiet and definately here it by the drainage holes on the road if im correct it feeds the lake in the park too